Tag: babysteps

I was recently at a friend’s house and she commented to me on her son’s diet. Apparently it had more dairy in it than she wanted it to have, but he really likes his milk and yogurt, and she wanted to know the best way to ease him off of it.

Knowing we want to change something and actually doing it are two very different things. I know that it’s not so easy to stop doing something you like, and it’s even harder to get someone else (your children) to stop doing something that they don’t even have the desire/logical reasons to stop. So, how do you do it?

I’ll let you know what worked for me.

Limiting dairy is included in my 10 Simple Steps to Transform Your Family’s Health, so getting a plan for doing it is a good thing.

If you don’t know why you’d want to remove cow’s milk from your diet, read MILK…It Does A Body Good. Or Does It? to start. You can find plenty more if you do a search on cow’s milk and its cons.

First, immediately switch to only ORGANIC dairy products. Non-organic dairy cows are pumped with hormones to make them produce more milk than is natural. These hormones come out in their milk, and get drunk by you. Animals kept in close unnatural quarters (not free range, eating grass) also get sick often and spread disease among each other. In order to keep them “healthy”, farmers give their animals antibiotics all the time, as a matter of course. These chemicals come out in their milk, and get drunk by you. By switching to organic, any amount of dairy products that you do end up consuming will not be as detrimental to your health. And, the added cost will make it easier for you to limit your consumption. Remember, you don’t NEED to have so much….it’s better for you to have less, of a better quality (if at all).

I might have had a head start by never having the habit of drinking milk as a beverage. I really only drank it with chocolate syrup in it when I was little; I just didn’t like the taste, and my parents didn’t push it. The only exception was (and still is) alongside some chocolate cake or cookies, which is a rarity and only to serve my taste buds once in awhile.

Since I never really drank it, the only real time I used it was poured over cereal. So I decided to start there. First, I stopped eating cereal so much. Once I learned to make fruit smoothies for breakfast, it limited the number of times I was tempted to pour milk on cereal. Then I bought some milk alternatives and started experimenting with them, mixing them in with the cow’s milk at first. I liked the texture of the soy milk, but it bothered my stomach. Rice Dream brand became my favorite after trying several, and I started with about half rice milk and half cow’s milk and worked my way up (slowly) to 100% rice milk. (Here’s how to make your own almond milk at home)

Once I got used to it, I got used to it. And so can you (and your children). You just have to work up to it.

Next was cheese. That’s a real tough one for me. I LOVE cheese, especially melted. I have tried cheese substitutes, but I am not satisfied by any of them. So, I’d rather have it much less frequently than use a substitute. If I have sliced cheese in the house for sandwiches, I will make a sandwich with melted cheese in it. Every day. Until it’s gone. So for me, I need to not have it in the house. I buy it only for a specific purpose (a specific meal), and either don’t buy extra or freeze the rest. (Freezing works well with shredded cheese; not too sure about the sliced).

Sheep and goat’s milk (and cheeses) are easier to digest and also have a stronger taste. That can work to your advantage in cutting down the dairy: crumbling a little bit of feta cheese into a salad isn’t as hard on your body but makes the whole thing more exciting. It also works well on pizza….make it more like a focaccia with only cubes of feta instead of covering the whole thing with cheese. Not the same, but still tasty. (And it’s better food combining too).

How about yogurt, you ask? Well, first of all, ask yourself why you are eating yogurt. While it’s true that yogurt has some good bacteria in it (probiotics), you can get many more of them just by taking them in capsules. So, if you want to add probiotics to your diet, I suggest doing it that way. However, if you simply must have your yogurt for taste, here’s my suggestion: first switch to sheep yogurt. Since it’s easier to digest than the cow’s yogurt, that’s the first step. Here in Israel I can buy sheep’s yogurt at the supermarket, sold right alongside the cow’s milk yogurt. Of course, this is still non-organic, pasteurized, etc…so it’s still not good. But, at least if you get the PLAIN kind and mix your own flavorings in (a little bit of raw honey/stevia/vanilla extract/cut up fruit…YUM) you’ll be avoiding all the chemicals and corn syrup.

Ideally, you can make your own yogurt from raw organic milk. I’ve never tried this but would like to.

As far as butter….do NOT use margarine in place of butter, thinking that it’s better for you. It is NOT. Really, I use butter as a spread for bread, and not for much else any more. Use oil for cooking, and you can use extra virgin olive oil for dipping bread in. It’s quite tasty, and makes it easy to limit the butter to a once in a while thing. And cutting the bread consumption down is a good thing too, so that helps.

Ice cream: Enjoy it. But only once in a while. In between, you can make good-for-you fruit “ice cream” without any added sugar in your Champion Juicer with the blank screen. Or at least I can. If you do some searching, you can probably find a way to make a yummy frozen sorbet.

So, to recap:

Drink water instead of milk (or anything else) as a beverage

Switch to organic. Whatever you do have will be better for you, and the added cost will help you in cutting down (which is the goal!)

On cereal, buy (or make) a milk alternative and mix it in (start with 50%), gradually increasing it.

Make fruit smoothies for breakfast, making it easier to eat less cereal.

Get sheep or goat’s milk feta or other sharp cheese to use sparingly, instead of other cheese. Make a meal plan including fewer meals with cheese.

Switch to plain sheep’s yogurt, mixing in healthier flavors. Begin to have it less frequently. If you really want to have yogurt regularly, consider making it yourself (best from raw milk)

Don’t buy ice cream in large containers to keep in your freezer at home. If you eat ice cream, have it as a treat when you are out, and get creative to make healthier frozen desserts at home.

Those of you who read this blog because I give you nice tips on health & wellness might be wondering what’s happened. It seems that every post lately has been about the Flylady and my Babysteps. Enough, already, you say! I want to hear more about Tofu!

Well, I don’t think tofu’s good for you. But that’s not important right now. (Tee hee-Airplane. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you really need to watch this classic movie.)

Yes, I will continue to post about health.

But I also want more peace in my home than I’ve had. I want less chaos, more order, more SANITY!

And this is where my two worlds, my two paths cross. My world of Health and Wellness, and my world of learning to keeping a peaceful home, raising, training, and teaching children. My reality, my real life.

But at a crossroad, you decide in which direction to go. And if you go in one direction, you cannot go in the other at the same time.

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, ” Kipling wrote.

But, these two roads of my life do more than cross. They run parallel to each other.

An orderly home is a peaceful home. It encourages living life, instead of just getting through it. (Which is what I feel I’m doing most of the time.) With systems in place to help my home run smoothly, I can really live my life, enjoying every day. But those systems don’t just happen, they are learned. One babystep at a time. Enter: Flylady.

A healthy body and healthy family makes a peaceful family. Its members feel good, have energy, and are able to really enjoy every day life. Do you want to feel good? Do you want your children to get sick less often? Ditch the headache and the foggy brain. Lose that “I just wanna go to sleep” feeling. Be able to eat without feeling blah. No more ear infections, no need to fear the flu. Doesn’t it sound nice?

It IS nice. We’re each on a journey in our lives. For me, my roads are both about taking babysteps to a peaceful home, and walking out the steps to a healthy life for me and my family. I’ve been on the path to wellness for many years, and it took me time to get to where I am now. I share with you the way to health, also through babysteps. Babysteps to health.

So, you see, FamilyNatural is about health and wellness. Wellness of peace in your body and at home. I don’t know it all; I’m figuring it out too. Thanks for walking along with me. One step at a time.

How fitting that on this, both my ONE HUNDREDTH POST and FamilyNatural’s one year anniversary my path is becoming something I can grasp, and share.

This is my biggest and most frequent Hot Spot: our dining table. Here is a picture of what it looked like before 2 minutes of clearing it.

You can see that my “desk” area is so cluttered that I’d have to clear a spot just to be able to work. And even if I did that, it would hardly be peaceful enough to promote productivity.

But, after just TWO MINUTES, now look. Pretty, peaceful. And I even changed my location to have a better view, lit a scented candle, have the flowers in sight, and a cup of herbal tea. MUCH better.
And it only took 2 minutes.

This means getting completely dressed, right away, including hair and face. You act differently, more professionally, when you have clothes and shoes on. When I do this I am ready for anything that might come up (or anyone who might come to the door).

This is a good habit and is not one I struggle with. Well, now that my baby is almost 10 months and I’m not up at all hours nursing her. With a tiny baby, I’m lucky if I am able to get dressed at all. Or shower. Or have time to use the bathroom.

Wait a minute, I still don’t get a moment of peace in there!

But I digress.

As I was saying, I have already made this a habit of mine and so I won’t pretend it’s new to me. But, I will say that it’s a good one. I get all the way dressed before I wake the children. My shoes tell my brain that it’s time to go to work.

And, off to work I go!

Did you get dressed to shoes today?

If you want to know more about this series, read this post to know why I’m doing this.

I’ve noticed that some others are blogging their Babystep Challenge Experience. Let’s get together on it! If you have a relevant post, add it below in the Mister Linky! After doing that, please link back to this post so we can all share. Thanks!

Here it is: my shiny sink. I was so excited to have a stainless steel sink when we moved into this house 2 years ago, since my last one was ceramic that looked dingy unless I bleached it at least once a week. So, I never bothered with that step with this one since I always thought it didn’t need it.

Now it’s cleaner than it was before. Looks great.

How’s yours coming?

I even emptied the dishdrain before I went to bed. I never do that. And it sure did smile at me this morning!

I was brought up well. I was taught manners and grooming, responsibility and morals. I graduated as an honor student, went to college and got a Bachelor’s degree. And then I went to graduate school and got a Doctorate in Chiropractic. I studied hard, worked hard, learned a lot. I’m no brain surgeon, but I consider myself a fairly intelligent, hard working person.

So, when it came to cooking and cleaning my home, staying on top of things, I figured I could handle it.

HA.

I repeat. HA HA.

After a few years offloundering around, feeling like a failure because I couldn’t manage my home, I found Flylady.net. Flylady is an online coach/fairy godmother who lovingly nudges you with very specific instructions that are easy to follow. And if you follow them, you can have a peaceful home with everything in order. No more CHAOS (Can’t Have Anybody Over Syndrome).Now, I’m not new to the Flylady system. I’ve been “using” it for a few years now. I put “using” in quotes, because although I’ve learned a ton and made many changes, there are a few things I just haven’t made habits yet. Things that really are preventing me from having the peace I want in my home. A few of my friends on twitter have decided to begin again with Flylady. And I’m joining in. It begins withtheBeginner’s Babysteps.Step 1 is to Go Shine Your Kitchen Sink. If you want to know why, you’re better off checking out the source.

I’m glad that I can start again, at any point. Taking babysteps is something that I know Works For Me.

If you want to jump in and join us, let me know! Leave a comment!

I’ll be posting the daily baby step assignment as well as my progress. Stay tuned for pictures of my shiny sink!For more WFMW, go to WeAreThatFamily.com